Greg's Concert Diary

In the fall of 1999, the stars aligned and I went to a lot more
concerts than normal. This inspired me to keep track of concerts I
have seen, and write reviews for as many as possible. Hence this web
page.

25 September, 2014: Owen Pallett
Théâtre Corona, Montreal

21 September, 2014: King Crimson
Best Buy Theater, New York

30 August, 2014: Arcade Fire
Parc Jean-Drapeau, Montreal

23 April, 2014: Yamantaka // Sonic Titan
Il Motore, Montreal

This show was badly marred by one bad opening act, then a
terrible opening act, then a very late start by the headliner. Memo
to bands playing small venues on weeknights: some of the people in
the audience have to get up and go to work in the morning. And not
everyone lives within walking distance of the venue; some of us need
to catch the last metro home, and in Montreal on weeknights, that
means finishing around midnight. So when you come on stage
at almost midnight, people are going to have to leave! At least I
did, because I didn't want to turn a $10 night out into a $50 night
out with cab fare home.

As for the music: the one song I stuck around for was from their
first album, which I love. It sounded great! I wish I could have
stayed for more. It looked and sounded like they have a really
interesting live show, at least from the first 10 minutes. Very
disappointing that I couldn't stay for the whole thing.

After this experience, I decided no more small venues for me. I
love professionally organized concerts by great bands, but waiting
for 3 hours and 2 bad-to-awful opening acts to see 10 minutes of the
band I came out for just pissed me off. That's actually the third
time this has happened to me in the last couple of years: enough
already.

7 December, 2013: Half Moon Run
Metropolis, Montreal

Odd: I didn't realize until writing this review that it was
exactly one year since the first time I saw Half Moon Run.
Musically, not much changed; they only have one album out, so all
the songs were familiar. But they seemed a lot more comfortable on
stage. I found the geeky, awkward, 2012 Half Moon Run endearing. The
2013 performance was just as good, but a little bit of their
uniqueness has been replaced by polish. Hmmm.

23 October, 2013: Franz Ferdinand
Metropolis, Montreal

It's a tough call whether Muse or Franz Ferdinand is better
at great big arena rock, twenty-first century style. Since we saw
Franz Ferdinand in a nightclub rather, I guess Muse gets that prize
on a technicality. But I liked Franz Ferdinand more. I like their
music more, and they just seemed a lot more human. They had fun on
stage, they interacted with the audience, and their
drum-solo-by-the-whole-band shtick at the finale was awesome. I
loved seeing them take the drum solo cliche to a new level.

I'm definitely not cool enough to go see bands like this, but
I did anyways. No regrets. The Barr Brothers were just good as when
I first discovered them opening for Plants and Animals in 2010. I
know it's selfish, but I love that they're small enough that they
still open for bigger bands, so I don't have to sit through some
boring opening act first.

As for The National, I'm kinda late to this party: I had heard of
them a several years ago, and they really got my attention when I
saw them at Osheaga in 2010. But I didn't start buying their albums
until the last year or two, so I was still missing a couple when I
saw this concert. Doesn't matter. Their music is just sublime, and
their live performance is magical. At least this one was. The
highlight of the evening was when Matt Berninger, the lead singer
who looks more like a university prof than a rock star, did a
walkabout through the audience with a wireless mic. Very much a rock
star thing to do, but he made it feel like he was just coming to say
hello to friends.

24 April, 2013: Muse
Bell Centre, Montreal

Roaring great fun. Great big arena rock is alive and well in
the 21st centry, and Muse does a fantastic job. They had an
elaborate upside-down pyramid thing above the stage with bazillions
of video screens and blinkenlights. Very nifty. Oh yeah, the music
was huge too. I'm really only familiar with one of their albums
(Black Holes and Revelations, from 2006), so most of the material
was new to me. It didn't make me want to rush out and buy more
albums, but they're very entertaining live.

7 December, 2012: Half Moon Run
Le National, Montreal

21 November, 2012: Stars; Metric
Bell Centre, Montreal

7 July, 2012: Iron Maiden Ottawa Bluesfest

Wow, it took me a long time to getting around to seeing
Maiden. I've been a happy owner of their amazing live double
album Live After Death since shortly after it was
released in 1984, so I guess I waited almost 30 years to see
them live. Yikes!

They did not disappoint. The music is still good, and the
musicians in top form. More importantly, they put on a hell of a
show. Bruce Dickinson in particular is a showman par
excellence. This was theatre as much as it was music, with
almost every song accompanied by at least a costume change on
Dickinson's part. For wild over-the-top madness, you can't beat
`The Number of the Beast', with its animatronic red-eyed Beast
and jets of fire in the background. Great fun. The other
highlight of the evening was `Seventh Son of a Seventh Son',
title track to the 1988 album that for some reason I had never
bought. Seeing it live was all it needed to make me rush out and
buy it shortly thereafter. Great album, great song, and the 2012
live version was electrifying.

3 July, 2012: Van der Graaf Generator
Théâtre Maisonneuve, Montreal

After seeing VdGG once already at the same time of year in the
same venue, I did have to think for almost a full second before
deciding to go again. No regrets. I don't think there was any
overlap in the setlists, and I even heard a great big epic Peter
Hammill song I had never heard before: 'Flight' from A Black
Box. Damn: yet another PH solo album I'm going to have to
get. Anyways, this concert was similar to the one in 2009,
although the bearded middle-aged male audience didn't
scream quite as loudly this time. Different songs, same
awesome power, and I still miss the sax. They're still an amazing
band, but not quite the same without it.

15 April, 2012: Patrick Watson
Théâtre Corona, Montreal

I've been following this group -- which really is a great band,
not just Patrick Watson and some accompanying players -- for
several years and three albums now, so it's about time I saw them
"for real": a dedicated indoor concert, just them playing music.
It was a bit hard to get fully into it, since much of the show
came from the just-released album Adventures in Your Own
Backyard, which I didn't have yet. But the older stuff was
great, and the new stuff convinced me to buy the CD that night.
(Which I was planning to do anyways, but never mind.) Excellent
sound, nice vibe, happy crowd, great music, and fine musicians: a
great show all round.

7 October, 2011: Portishead
Quai Jacques-Cartier, Montreal

Seriously? Who schedules an outdoor concert in Montreal in
October? I mean, chances are it'll be just fine, but it might be
10 degrees and raining. Well, never mind, the weather was just
fine. And the concert was better than fine; it was
awesome.

Portishead is one of those bands I missed out on the first time
around, back in the mid-90s. But at least I was on top of things
when they released their tour-de-force third album (the creatively
titled Third). So when they came to town to play it live,
I couldn't miss it. What really impressed me is that although
Portishead on record sounds like a very electronic, studio band,
their live show is just that: alive, played by superb musicians on
real instruments (some which may have been MIDI-connected, but so
what?). In an unusual twist, the old songs were nice, but it was
the new stuff that blew me away. Third is an
amazing album, but seeing much of it played live was just
transcendent. Fantastic show.

22 September, 2011: Karkwa; Arcade Fire
Place des Festivals, Montreal

You know you might be a "left brainer" when you find yourself in
a vast throng of people, all enjoying one of the best bands to come
along in the last decade, and you find yourself thinking, "let's
see... 100 m to the edge of the square... 250 m to the stage
... that's 25,000 square metres filled with people at probably 3-4
per square metre... yep, easily 75,000 people here, and that's not
counting the additional crowd around the corner". Turns out my
estimate is way off -- I just checked a map, and Place des Festivals
is closer to 50 m by 200 m. Damn.

Anyways, seeing two of Montreal's finest outside, with good
sound, for free, with many tens of thousands of other good-natured
laid back people, was a treat. I'm not too familiar with Karkwa as I
only have their most recent album, but I liked what I heard. My only
complaint about their set was that it was too short -- only 35
minutes!

Seeing Arcade Fire again, after seeing them play Osheaga 2010 at
the start of their tour, was a nice bookend. They have amazing
energy on stage, not to mention being damned fine musicians. They
played the obvious crowd-pleasers from The Suburbs and
Funeral, but also some less-known songs. For a band with
only three albums out, they already have an impressive catalog to
choose from.

Unfortunately, the vast throng around me was a little too blasé
about the whole thing, and I think we missed a chance to fire some
of the band's energy back at them. So it was a great show, but could
have been even better -- no fault of the band, but of the
audience.

Went to this one to hear Plants and Animals, as they had just
released their second album. Ended up being totally blown away by
the never-heard-of-'em opening act, The Barr Brothers. What a
revelation: they don't do anything fancy, just rootsy
blues/country/rock -- but boy do they do it well. Brilliant and
beautiful music, and I'm hardly a big fan of the genre. If you are,
you must hear The Barr Brothers now. Do not delay.

Plants and Animals were quite disappointing, mainly because their
sound was too loud and distorted to hear what they were actually
playing. They might have been spot on every note or wildly off, but
I couldn't tell the difference. We left after 20 minutes or so.

28 January, 2010: Champion
Metropolis, Montreal

9 July, 2009: Van der Graaf Generator
Théâtre Maisonneuve, Montreal

Did you ever have one of those moments where you suddenly
learned not only that one of your all-time favourite bands was back
together after 30 years, but that they were playing live in your
city in a week? That was me when I leafed through the schedule for
the Montreal International Jazz Festival in 2009: OMG! Van der Graaf
Generator!!! Talk about excited.

But compared to the crowd of bearded middle-aged men, I was
completely laid back about the whole thing. Wow. You've seen the
footage of Beatlemania in 1964, right? Well, the reaction that night
was a scaled back version, only a few thousand people, and they
were middle-aged men rather than teenaged girls. But I swear to you,
they were screaming.

The concert? Oh yeah, there was a band there. It was awesome,
but how could it not be? It was Van der Graaf Generator,
the very epitome of awesome. They played enough of their epic
ear-benders from the 70s to keep everyone happy, as well as some
tunes from Peter Hammill's solo records. And there was some
stuff from their reunion album. One gripe: VdGG has always been
based on the classic power trio, namely drums, organ, and saxophone.
("What? That's not the classic power trio?") But apparently
they are now a sax-less band, and the hole in the lineup was very
evident. Something just wasn't right hearing VdGG without one
of their signature instruments.

Man, he looks like a total wanker, but this guy can play the
guitar like a god. And it turns out that he's actually quite warm
and down-to-earth on stage. He just needs a better haircut.
Anyways, the music's the important thing, and this band was
smoking hot. There were 8-10 performers on stage for most of the
show, most of them virtuosos (one backup guitarist and the bassist
weren't given much of a chance to show off, but everyone else
was). Most of the show was complex, high-energy, instrumental
music: loads of rhythm and buckets of acoustic guitar. They
brought in a couple of guest singers -- apparently semi-famous
jazz singers -- whose names escape me. Also had a load of samba
drummers (maybe 20 of them) on stage for the last couple of songs;
the sheer volume (in both senses of the word) of drum was
impressive. And the final encore was unamplified with yet another
guest singer, who I have actually heard of: Ron Sexsmith. I
didn't realize what a fine voice he had. Anyways, they had a
phalanx of video cameras taping the whole thing (and three more
shows over the next two days), and it's supposed to result in a
DVD -- should be good viewing if you like mostly-acoustic
instrumental, genre-busting music.

29 June, 2006: The Dears
Metropolis, Montreal

The Dears are veterans of the booming Montreal indie scene (see
next entry). I wish someone had told me about them a couple of
years ago! Oh well, I'm in the loop now and quite mad for their
2003 album, No Cities Left. So naturally I was thrilled
as heck at the chance to see them live before their next album
(which, apparently, is already in the can) comes out. And a damn
fine show it was. They started off with a couple of new songs,
which sounded a bit pared-down compared to the big, epic sound I
love from No Cities Left. Then they got the crowd going
with a couple of those big epic songs from the album: glorious!
They kept us on our toes, alternating more new stuff with older
songs, all quite invigorating and loads of fun. I'm definitely
looking forward to the new album (and I don't even have their
first album yet!).

20 April, 2006: Wolf Parade
National Theatre, Montreal

In case you've been living under a rock for the last couple of
years, there's been an explosion of great pop music in Canada,
quite a lot of it in Montreal. Wolf Parade is of the many fine
bands to emerge recently. They put on a good show: just the right
amount of rock-star posturing to make it fun, but still quite
tight musically. While they only have one full-length album out
so far, it has a bunch of good songs and a couple of
great ones, and they played the right ones live. Also played some
new stuff which was immediately enjoyable. Looking forward to
more from these guys in the future.

26 March, 2006: Värttinä
Kola Note, Montreal

Apparently a famous Finnish folk band. I quite like most of the
Nordic folk music I've heard, and intrigued by the Lord of the
Rings connection (they did the music for the
currently-failing-to-wow-'em-in-Toronto LotR musical), so this
sounded like it could be interesting. Turned out they're not
really a folk band anymore -- this was competent but uninspiring
pop music with strong folk influences, in Finnish.

13 July, 2005: Miriodor and Present
Lion d'Or, Montreal

Two concerts for the price of one! Miriodor is a Montreal
band that lives somewhere in the shadowy realm between weird
contemporary art music and progressive rock, but they pull it off
well. The concert was mostly unfamiliar to me, since (at the
time) I didn't have any of their albums more recent than
Jongleries Élastiques (1995). But their intricate
instrumental chamber rock (oh, you know, the usual lineup: guitar,
bass, drums, keyboards, violin, saxophone) kept my attention all
the same. A good band if you like interesting modern music that's
not too brain-bendingly weird.

As for Present: this is where you go if you want it
weird. Brain-bending, mind-numbing, eardrum-shattering weird.
These guys are so weird I've never really gotten too heavily into
their recorded music, unlike the better-known and vaguely-related
Univers Zero (who are also deeply strange, but not quite so
eardrum-shatteringly so). But I could hardly pass up the chance
to see an obscure Belgian band, could I? As for the concert, it
was every bit as dark, screechy, off-the-wall, and out-and-out
dissonant as one could hope for -- a ripping good time had by all,
I think. The biggest problem was that it was TOO DAMN LOUD -- the
soundcheck was a bad sign, since each musician just kept turning
up his own level. I think they kept it up throughout the concert;
by the end, the finale was nothing more than a solid wall of white
noise... which may have been the intent all along. Still, a
little respect for the audience (which couldn't have been more
than 100 -- the Lion d'Or is a small venue) would have been
nice.

12 April, 2005: The Tannahill Weavers
La Sala Rosa, Montreal

My second date with this hard-core traditional Scottish band,
and their first visit to Montreal in something like 20 years.
Much like the two best-of albums of theirs in my collection, they
alternated between balls-to-the-wall tunes (jigs and reels and so
forth) and more leisurely songs. Call me a philistine, but I
prefer the high-energy instrumental stuff -- especially the
bagpipe-heavy tunes. Good fun, but I get the impression these
guys have done it all a bit too often -- it all seemed a little
too pat and rehearsed.

5 December, 2003: The Musical Box
Spectrum, Montreal

I finally indulged my not-very-secret love of Genesis' golden
years (1970-74) by going to see this well-known cover band. Thing
is, The Musical Box is way more than just a cover band;
they duplicate every aspect of Genesis' 1973 stage show (the
Selling England by the Pound tour) in painstaking detail,
right down to the light show. And they are also very good
musicians in their own right who sound eerily similar to the
originals. Anyways, The Musical Box did not disappoint -- this
was a hell of a show, highly recommended to anyone who still loves
Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, and those other great
early Genesis albums.

December 2003: King Crimson
Théâtre St-Denis, Montreal

Enjoyable enough, but somehow not up to the standards one has
come to expect of live Crimson after all the live albums we
have been treated to since the early 90s. I suspect that
Crimson belong in nightclubs, not theatres: see my previous
Crim concert, below. Or listen to Absent Lovers, the
smoking hot 1984 live album recorded at the Spectrum in
Montreal (which is bigger than the 9:30 Club in DC where I saw
them in 2000, but still not that big).

July 2002: Eric Ross
Musée d'art contemporain, Montreal

Probably the worst concert I have ever been to. I was
initially attracted by the idea of a solo theremin
performance, but Eric Ross appears to be a middle-aged music
professor gripped by the notion that he has talent and should
be performing in public. He does not and should not. Nor
should he allow his wife to perpetrate her video "art" in
public. What a pretentious load of utter codswallop.

10 November, 2000: King Crimson
9:30 Club, Washington, DC

Fantastic; Crimson in top form. Definitely a small club is
the right venue for this band -- both times I've seen them in
Montreal were in a theatre, and both times were rather
lackluster. Hmmm, I wonder if there's a connection.

This was actually the first time I ever saw a live performance
of a classical piece that I knew well (The Firebird
in this case). I don't remember much else about this concert,
but seeing a real live early Stravinsky piece done live was
electrifying. Now if only someone would do The Rite of
Spring for me, I could die happy.

Ahh, so this is what it takes to be a prize-winning
pipe band: incredible precision, immaculate uniforms, and
robot-like performance. Technically very impressive, but a
bit, well, artificial. I had never seen a full pipe band
blasting away, so it was certainly interesting -- nice
contrast to classical gigs where people glare at you for
scratching your head too loudly; I don't think anyone would
have heard anything less than a 747 crashing on the lawn over
the glorious cacophony of all those bagpipes in full swing.
The reason I went to the concert, though, was not to see the
pipe band piping away, but rather to see them piping away
together with Bonnie Rideout, a local fiddler of some renown.
In fact, there were hardly two numbers with the same
instrumentation, which was fun. The musical highlight of the
evening was completely spontaneous: during a lull in the
proceedings, when a solo piper who was expected on stage had
not yet appeared, Rideout jumped up and did an impromptu and
wildly fun performance of `The Mason's Apron', a fitting tune
considering the venue (and the enormous portrait behind the
stage of George Washington sporting just such an apron).

The other highlight of the evening was the building itself:
if you've ever wondered just what the Freemasons do, I suspect
they raise money to build Masonic temples. This one, which is
a memorial to George Washington (one of the better-known
Freemasons), is spectacular, the auditorium especially. The
stonework is flawless, naturally, and the acoustics are great
too. Wonder why it doesn't get used for more concerts --
probably a Masonic conspiracy (sigh).

9 May, 2000: Natalie MacMaster
Ram's Head Tavern, Annapolis, MD

One of several fine young fiddlers to emerge from Cape Breton
Island in the last couple of years; I find this school of
traditional music a bit austere (typically all you get is
fiddle, guitar, and piano -- no bagpipes or other fun stuff),
but when played well it's lots of fun. I'm not too familiar
with MacMaster's playing, as I only have one album (No
Boundaries, which is mostly competent with a few shining
moments) -- so I had the pleasure of not knowing what to
expect. Turns out she's a lot more fun live than on record,
both musically and personally. (Memo to MacMaster's record
label's marketing department: the air-brushed, soft-focus
album cover shots have got to go! she is way too warm and
down-to-earth for such silliness.)

The only downside was the completely gratuitious presence
of a drummer. In principle, I have nothing against drummers
in traditional Celtic groups; I like them in rock and jazz, so
why not in folk? However, they're not really traditional and
certainly not necessary to provide a sense of rhythm -- so
they should only be present when they really add something,
such as interesting and compelling playing. This guy did not.
What's worse, he was allowed to perpetrate a drum solo, which
should not be permitted of any drummer of such mediocre
calibre. Leave soloing to the likes of Neil Peart and Tony
Williams, please. Why doesn't some Celtic band hook
up with Mickey Hart, who has been doing such interesting work
since the Dead died?

Despite my reasonable familiarity with early electronic music,
I had never heard of Mother Mallard -- supposedly the first
all-synthesizer ensemble. So when they were lined up to appear as
part of a Smithsonian Institution program marking X (200?)
years of the piano, I was intrigued. I was even more interested
since Keith Emerson was on the bill: Emerson, Lake & Palmer have
long been a "guilty pleasure" for me, and I still get a kick out
of their classic bombastic over-performances.

The show started out with promise; the current incarnation
of Mother Mallard includes electric guitar, clarinet, and a few
other goodies alongside all the synths and piano. They did
a great job of Philip Glass' 1000 Airplanes on the
Roof; I'm not familiar with this one, but based on that
performance I'm guessing it's one of Glass' better
compositions, and I really like his good stuff. Why nobody
else has thought to play Glass on electric guitar mystifies
me: it was fantastic.

Alas, things went downhill from there. I don't really remember
much of the middle material; it wasn't terribly bad and it wasn't
terribly good. Things went disastrously downhill at the end of
the show, though. The last piece before Emerson came on was
something by John Cage -- prepared piano played according to
completely novel musical conventions with no apparent rhyme or
reason to which notes are played when. I have a pretty open mind
about music, but I guess Cage is just too weird for me. However,
the towering ego of David Borden -- Mother Mallard's führer --
managed to make it even worse by playing "accompaniment" to it,
i.e. playing some swishy synthesizer piece on top of the Cage. In
theory, this is perfectly in tune with Cage's philosophy of music
-- but Borden's conventional synth piece completely overpowered
the Cage piece, rendering it more of "David Borden with bits of
John Cage randomly sprinkled throughout".

Finally, the depths were truly plumbed when Keith Emerson came on:
back in the 70s, he was a wildly over-the-top performer who could play
keyboards like nobody's business. In my view, musical talent excuses a
fair amount of on-stage silliness, so I can forgive ELP's excesses of
yesteryear. However, Emerson struck me that night as a washed-up
vaudevillian: precious little talent left, and not much showmanship
either. The rendering of Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man
(which ELP used to do with great gusto) was beyond embarassing; it was
pathetic. It's hard to imagine a worse pairing of musicians than Mother
Mallard -- for the most part university professors or college
instructors of music -- with Keith Emerson, who was probably the
greatest prog-rock vaudevillian of the 70s and today is a sad echo of
his former self.

Woo-hoo! Three bands for eight bucks! Even
though I arrived late and missed most of Kopecky's set,
and left early, it was still cheap. However, interesting
it was not. Kopecky are three brothers from Wisconsin;
give them credit for driving all the way from Wisconsin
to Baltimore for one gig. The music, unfortunately, was
unremarkable -- fairly competent instrumental power-trio rock,
but that's about all I remember now. Dark Water Transit was
even less interesting, so I left after a few numbers. Oh
well.

11 November, 1999: Battlefield Band
(Barns at Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA)

One of the mainstays of the traditional Scottish scene for the
last couple of decades, Battlefield Band have been on my
"really must look into" list for some time. Finally got my
chance when they appeared at Wolf Trap (a very posh venue --
the indoor stage, "The Barns at Wolf Trap" being a couple of
nicely reconstructed 18th century barns) for the third time
this year. I shouldn't have procrastinated so long; these
guys are fantastic.

The first half of the show was about what you'd expect from
any competent traditional Scottish band: reels and jigs and
ballads and just-plain-songs played on guitar, fiddle,
bagpipes, and keyboards. (The keyboards were usually used for
synthesized piano, which wasn't too bad; occasionally, the
keyboard player veered dangerously close to swooshy, vapid,
New-Age-y sounds, but the rest of the band made up for it.)
The band was engaging, amusing, and played very well, but
didn't quite arouse the audience--I blame the audience (the
bland, middle-aged Americans who seem to be the mainstay of
Wolf Trap's audience do not know how to appreciate good
music). The second half picked up quite a bit; the musicians'
energy level ratcheted up several notches, and they even got a
measurable response from the audience. Terrific performance
by the band, but it verified the importance of a responsive
audience to a good show.

6 November, 1999: Peter Hammill
(Phantasmagoria, Wheaton, MD)

Peter Hammill was lead singer, main composer, guitarist, and
keyboardist for Van der Graaff Generator, one of my all-time
favourite bands for their frantic, intense energy, amazing
ability to play in a state of controlled chaos for extended
periods, dark and sprawling compositions, and Hammill's
intense and dramatic singing. He's been putting out solo
records at a fair clip since the early 1970s, so his solo
career far outweighs the VdGG output--but for some reason I
haven't explored that career too deeply; all I have are couple
of compilations and two of his albums from the 1990s.
(Note: since writing this reviewer, I have started to
correct this situation.)

So I was unfamiliar with most of the material Hammill
played when he appeared at Phantasmagoria (an odd little
combination of record shop and nightclub in the suburban
wasteland north of Washington, DC) in November 1999. That
didn't matter a whit: with a musician this good, it doesn't
matter if you're familiar with the material or not, the
intensity of the performance nails you to the wall regardless.
And the intensity that Hammill wrung out of his voice
(accompanied by his own playing on either keyboards or guitar,
and Stuart Gordon on violin) was formidable. Before this
concert, I would not have thought it possible to play
flat-out, kick-ass, no-holds-barred rock 'n roll on acoustic
guitar and violin, but Hammill and Gordon proved otherwise.
And that was only one highlight; most of the songs would seem
relatively sedate on a superficial listening, but in actuality
carry a deep, dark emotional load delivered with quiet
intensity. A masterful performance (and well appreciated by
the tiny audience of 40 or 50).

I know very little about Bill Frisell apart from what I read
in the program before the concert--and the fact that I always
used to confuse him with Bill Laswell due to the similar
names. Now that I have seen Bill Frisell in concert (I
already have some Bill Laswell recordings, with Massacre and
Material), I will not make that mistake again.

Frisell's New Quartet (at least the one performance I saw)
is delicately balanced between lighthearted and serious; the
music is best characterized as supremely pleasant--an odd
juxtaposition of extreme and moderate, but that's really how
the music struck me. In other words, the composition and
playing were top-notch, and the ambience created by the
artists was warm and welcoming, but the mood and energy level
throughout were always subdued. It's not quite up my alley,
but was so well done that I didn't really mind.

Two modern American "progressive" bands that I've read a bit
about on the 'net, but had never heard a note of music from.
So when they had a concert nearby, I figured $10 was a small
price to pay to explore a bit of the local scene.

The price of admission was worth it for
The Dark Aether
Project; in a nutshell, they play mostly instrumental,
extended rock music. It wasn't clear how much of the
performance was improvised, but that hardly matters when you
don't have familiarity with the recordings to prejudice you.
All in all quite well done; I got the impression that this
particular lineup has not been together very long (no, I can't
read musicians like a book--the keyboardist and apparent
bandleader, Adam Levin, said as much in one of his remarks),
but they played well enough for an hour and a half that they
kept my attention almost the whole time. The closest
comparison I can think of is Djarm Karet, another contemporary
American band into extended instrumental rock music. Dark
Aether seemed a lot more lively than Djam Karet, but that's
probably an unfair comparison of live performance to
recording; perhaps Djam Karet is less cool and cerebral in
concert than on record, but I don't know.

Iluvator was supposedly the evening's main event, but they
were quite disappointing compared to the Dark Aether Project.
I suppose if they too had been a purely instrumental outfit,
the $10 would have been an amazing bargain, as the musicians
were quite competent, seemed familiar with the material, and
exhibited a few brief, shining moments of exhilarating
interplay that almost made it worth enduring the rest of the
performance. Unfortunately, the "standard"
guitar/bass/drums/keyboards lineup was ruined by the addition
of a singer--not that I have anything against vocals, mind
you, just that I have something against hystrionics, wailing,
and generally carrying on like Freddie Mercury by someone who
is a long, long way from being Freddie Mercury. And, oh yeah,
when the singer had the sense to shut up and let the band play
(which they did a fine job of), he had an annoying tendency to
play air guitar, air keyboards, or just make stupid arena rock
gestures that don't work too well in front of an audience of
40 or 50. Yet another potentially fine progressive rock band
ruined by an unremittingly awful singer.

Speaking of contemporary American progressive rock, there is
a much more interesting and worthwhile strain of that species
centred around bands like 5uu's and Thinking Plague. Plague
dates back to the mid-1980s, but they only have two albums out
on CD: In This Life (Recommended Records, 1989) and
In Extremis (Cuneiform, 1998). Both are wonderfully
weird, with wildy off-kilter (and constantly shifting) time
signatures, deeply strange (but at the same time ethereally
beautiful) vocals, and fantastically precise musicianship.
The concert lived up wonderfully to the recordings, with a
good mix of old and new material. There was also an interlude
of material from the closely-related band Hamster Theatre,
which is odd in its own special way (I liked it enough that I
picked up their album Siege on Hamburger City at the
Plague concert, and haven't regretted it yet).

Definitely one of the best performances I've seen in a
while. Thinking Plague lay in hiatus for too damn long after
In This Life came out, and it's a wonderfully great
news to see them recording and touring again. Apparently they
have a new album due out sometime in 2000--I can hardly wait
for it.